Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
The FDA is considering allowing silicon-gel breast implants back on the market for elective purposes. They have been banned in the US since 1992, except for patients with breast cancer or in controlled research studies of other conditions. Nothing lasts forever, and leaking silicon will make you just sicker than hell, but apparently the silicon implants are far more realistic than the saline-filled ones. In countries where both are sold, about 90% of patients choose the former.
Can't say I have much of an opinion about this; I suppose I view it in the same light as drugs. Adults should have the right to put potentially unhealthy things into their bodies if that's what they really want to do. All the same, I have to think that some day in the not very distant future, people will look back at electively shoving foreign objects under your skin to change the shape of your body (as opposed to following breast cancer surgery) as one of the most bizarre and inexplicable practices of our time, on a par with these sorts of things.
TrackBackInteresting. I don't know if adults should be able to put whatever they want into their bodies. Certainly that's not how our policies have worked - there's been a huge movement in the past few years to lay blame for the huge health tab related to cigarette smoking. I guess that's not quite the same as banning smoking altogether, but it does suggest some policy awareness that people's health imposes an externality on others. Don't know if that's the case here, but it looks like it could be...
Posted by: paul at October 9, 2003 11:26 PM